ORIGINAL: moet Indeed, I never imagined that the task was so hard for the invading Germans on the light of their enormous summer 1941 success.

When they encountered a T-34 or KV-1 that was in good repair with enough ammo and a decent crew, if they had no 50mms or 88mms nearby they certainly had trouble. There are a few horror stories about the first encounters and some Soviet armored counterattacks before the Germans learned their weaknesses and how to destroy them (but often still at a cost). They had similar experiences with some of the French and British heavy tanks in France, but those were scarce enough and again had other weaknesses in doctrine, tactics, or what have you. The Germans had many trump cards, but the stats of their tanks (at least in the early war) was not one of them.

Fortunately for the Germans, the T-34s and KV-1s were often in poor repair and poorly led and with green crews. I believe the majority of the Soviet tank losses were non-combat losses in those early days. A few stories here:

There is a great narrative of how difficult just one KV 1 could be to take out in '41 in Erhard Raus Panzers on the Eastern Front. The shear effort it took and the delay is caused to take out this one tank was enlightening.

I read stories that the Germans could take out many T-34s with the 20mm Vierling (flak).

The 20mm couldn't penetrate the T34's armor, but they found that the crews always abandoned the tank because the metal hull became a huge bell from the many explosive projectiles, driving the crew insane.

"Hits" in the game include effects such as immobilization, suppression, crew panic, etc. Your weapon of choice against T-34s and KV-1s is still definitely not going to be a Panzer II, but just about anything is possible given the right situation, modifiers and a great roll. It's also fair to assume that the crews you find in the scenarios are the ones that were good enough to get their tank to battle and are already likely the most competent of the bunch (though there are also different unit qualities in the game - green, experienced, etc.)

Also I thought 88's being used as an anti tank gun was rare a the time especially the start of the Russian campaign. I know Raus had to wait a long time to get an 88 up front to deal with a tank at one point.

I believe as time went on they realised what an asset they where in an Anti tank role and started to take that into consideration. As the KV 1 and T34 where pretty invulnerable to a majority of the Germans tanks in the initial stages.

I always imagined the Germans to have had the best tanks and equipment many ayers ago until I started to read more about the Russian campaign and WW2 in general. I then realsied that a vast majority of the German tanks at the start of Barbarossa where inferior to the Russian tanks. It was all down to radio communications and superior tactics that helped the Germans match and beat the Russian tanks. Until the started to produce enough Panzer IV's anyway. I think Germany was still a good year away or more from being truly ready for the Russian campaign.